Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government putting the interests of fewer than 10 mining companies ahead of more than nine million workers, 1.3 million families and 3.2 million small businesses.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government loves three-word slogans. So the opposition has one to suggest to them—'Hands off superannuation'.

What on earth was this government thinking when they made the decision to put the interests of a few mining companies ahead of nine million Australians, ahead of 3.2 million small businesses and ahead of 1.3 million families? It is how this government rolls. In a year of stupid and short-sighted decisions by this government, in a year where they have broken so many promises, and as the news of this dirty deal between the government and Palmer United Party emerged, I would submit to the parliament of Australia today that I believe that this decision is the stupidest most short-term decision I have seen this government make. It will have a generational impact and no doubt those opposite smirk. Why would they not? Their superannuation is fine. The problem is this government and these MPs do one thing for themselves yet they ask nine million Australians to do something else altogether.

This is, without a doubt, one of the most catastrophic decisions that we will see affect this generation. Well done, government. No-one in their wildest imaginings, when we thought about the potential damage this government could do, could imagine that this government would take $150 billion in retirement savings from Australians in the future. The immediate decision to freeze superannuation by keeping it at 9½ per cent for the next number of years, according to the Financial Services Council, will cost $128 billion.

What an arrogant Treasurer we have. What a cigar-chomping, out of touch, blow-hard Treasurer we have when he would declare 'oh no, it is not $128 billion gone'. Does this Treasurer think he is so smart that he knows more than the modelling of the Financial Services Council? It was truly one of the funniest moments in an otherwise disappointing day when the Treasurer in question time said, 'I have not seen the assumptions behind this modelling.' Treasurer, we have not seen any of your assumptions behind this hastily cobbled together deal.

The effect of this decision will be disastrous. We hear this government talk about what it all means and how it is going to give money back to people. Someone who is 25 years old earning an average income will be $100,000 worse off. This mob opposite screamed like cut cats about the carbon price yet they have gone to town and committed a cost impact on Australians, the effect of which will be felt for generations.

What do they do to show their priorities? Those people opposite want to give 16,000 people who have millions of dollars already in their superannuation and who earn in excess of $100,000 in interest—that is right; there are people who earn over $100,000 in interest alone—a tax break. Why did we not think of that?

We see beyond the cuts to the schoolkids bonus and the income support bonus. We actually have to look at the generational impact of this decision. It is deeper than even the immediate effect; it goes to one of philosophy. These people love to give a lecture about being lifters not leaners. If you believe them, they are into thrift, they are into accountability, they are into the good old fashioned work ethic and they want Australians to work hard and save. They are always complaining about debt. So what do they do when they are philosophically committed, apparently, to thrift and saving? They damage the single best institution in Australia for savings.

Tony Abbott said in 1995 that compulsory superannuation is a 'con job'. He just wants to give the money back. We see those opposite undermine universal access to Medicare. We see them undermine equitable access to universities. Now they are undermining the great good dream of ordinary Australians to have enough money when they retire. They say 'we kept our promise'; oh no they have not. This is most certainly an adverse change to superannuation and they want to talk about cocks crowing. I tell you what: their roosters would be hoarse because 14 times the Prime Minister said there will be no adverse changes. They would have laryngitis with the amount of untruths that spill from their throats.

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert is not in his seat and may not interject.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Be careful, say nothing. They would attack one of the great savings vehicles of Australia. We know we are living longer and that is a good thing. We know that healthcare costs go up. What is this mendicant generation-wrecking government choosing to do? They are denying people the financial wherewithal to have enough money in their accounts to pay for their health care in retirement.

They love to talk about infrastructure. If infrastructure could be built by words alone then these would be the crane kings. We know that infrastructure is funded by superannuation and they are starving Australia of infrastructure funding by starving superannuation funds. What I particularly find galling in what they have done is that they have fed the beast of minority parties' publicity seeking with no interest in the long-term.

I get they have to do deals. I understand they do some horse trading. But never would I imagine that they would put on the chopping block Australia's great superannuation system. They are strangling the superannuation system and starving it of resources. They have managed to get the mining tax off the back of nine companies and the deal they got for it? Nine million people having their superannuation frozen. I would not send this mob to buy a litre of milk at the milk bar; they would end up selling the house on the way through.

They talk about wages. Getting a lecture about workers' wages from these people is insulting. I must concede, Tony Abbott has the hide of a rhinoceros or a sense of humour that no-one has yet discovered when he declares that he is the worker's best friend in giving them money. Let me be clear and let me remind Australia: the Liberal Party opposite—all of them—have never supported wage rises for workers. So be very careful: when you hear Tony Abbott promising a wage rise for workers it is time to panic—put the money in the shoebox!—because these people do not know. They think manual labour is a Spanish tennis star! They have never backed in Australian workers.

What they do is say, 'We're going to back in wages.' So this is the real story of the dirty deal done cheap by these people. What they first of all said was, 'We're not going to have Australians save for their retirement.' They said, 'We're going to get wage rises for workers.' As if! As if anyone believes that! The real reason—the only thing they have done here—is that they have given corporate profits a kick along, because without the savings—and we know that they do not back wages—the only people who benefit from this decision are some corporations who will increase their profits. And that is the essence of the Palmer-Abbott deal.

Who wins in this deal? Who wins by losing a mining tax? Mining companies, including Palmer. Who wins in this deal if you do not have to pay increased superannuation? Mining companies—they do not have to pay more in their wages and they do not have to pay more in their superannuation. This mob opposite favour offshore profits over onshore savings. Do not ever again, Prime Minister, talk to us about mandates. You have no mandate to wreck the superannuation system.

You have no mandate to lecture the Australian people on debt when, in fact, you are discouraging them from saving. They have this audacity—this stupid, short-term government—they have superannuation in their sights and they are freezing it and wrecking it. Why should nine million Australians retire with less money than they otherwise would have? What I find particularly galling in getting a lecture from the Prime Minister of Australia and the Treasurer of Australia is that none of their decisions will hurt them.

They make a decision which hurts nine million real people, 3.2 million small businesses and 1.3 million families, and there is no skin in the game from that mob opposite.

I say to the government: you have made super an election issue and we will win that fight. (Time expired)

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition has relevance deprivation syndrome after getting the lowest vote for the Labor Party in 100 years—since 1903. And then, after being looked over and turned over as the people's choice as the Leader of the Opposition, he has the call to come into this place and to pretend that we should be dealing with them when we are having success in the Senate.

We are getting things done in this, the 44th Parliament of Australia, by virtue of the quality of our policies and the quality of our ideas. The fact is, since coming to office, and after less than one year in office, we have repealed the carbon tax, we have given approval to more than $800 billion of infrastructure projects, we are building the roads of the 21st century, we have cut more than $700 million of red tape and we have stopped the boats. And we have done all those things without the help of those opposite.

And now, just yesterday, we have had another success and that success has seen the repeal of the mining tax—a tax which nobody wanted and which nobody needed. It was a tax which was introduced with no consultation by those opposite; a tax which the member for Lilley says was about redistributing the wealth of the resources sector amongst the wider Australian population. But do you know how much revenue that tax produced?

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How much?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, firstly, let me ask you, member for Hughes: how much money was that tax expected to produce? It was $49.5 million when the mining tax was first conceived—$49.5 billion. But the reality is that after so much fanfare, after such a lack of consultation and after so much pain and heartache for our miners and our workers, this tax has just produced $340 million. That is just 2½ cents over the last 12 months for every Australian. Talk about redistributing wealth—that was an abject failure. It is not just bad to produce a tax that produces so little revenue but what is so bad about the mining tax and why we needed to act urgently was because those opposite attached $17 billion of expenditure to that tax—$17 billion of expenditure and only $340 million in revenue.

You do not need to be Einstein to realise that you have a budget problem if you have $17 billion of spending and just $340 million of revenue. So we have repealed this mining tax and, by virtue of repealing this mining tax, the budget repair job is well on its way. And more than $50 billion will be the improvement to the nation's finances over the next 10 years—more than $50 billion.

Let me tell you why that is so important: it is because the legacy of those opposite was a fiscal wreck job which we have not seen the likes of in this country before—$667 billion worth of debt. And those opposite say that we are now taking away thousands of dollars from people's super, which is not only a lie but it denies the fact that they have saddled every man, woman and child in Australia with $25,000 of debt. That is the number we should be debating in this chamber—the $25,000 worth of debt that those opposite have saddled every Australian man, woman and child with.

When the member for Maribyrnong—the Leader of the Opposition—comes in here and says, 'You've made broken promises and you will be getting laryngitis because something was said six times,' what about the member for Lilley and Senator Wong, who promised a budget surplus more than 400 times? Do you remember that moment when the member for Lilley came to this dispatch box and said, 'Tonight, I am announcing four years of surpluses'? I must have missed something because we have not seen one of those surpluses. We have just seen consecutive deficits.

The fact is that we knew that we needed to act. It was not just the coalition saying that we needed to act; it was independent players like the Parliamentary Budget Office and the Commission of Audit that projected deficits out as far as the eye could see, and others like the IMF and the OECD which looked at the rate of Australian government spending. The fact is in Australia we do have a structural deficit. When John Howard left office, government spending as a proportion of GDP was 23.1 per cent. Today it is 25.9 per cent. If we do nothing, it goes to 26.5 per cent. Why, those opposite may be asking, is this important? This is important because tax revenue is around 22 per cent. So you have a gap, the member for Sydney would understand, between 22 per cent and 25.9 per cent, and that is just the borrowings year upon year which Labor are saddling the next generation with. We should be having a debate in this place about the notion of fairness and the fact that Labor has saddled the next generation with an unfair level of debt.

Those opposite come in here and say that we are hurting small business. Do you know who hurt small business the most? Those opposite saw more than 400,000 jobs lost in small business. Just sitting with me at the table is a person who worked in small business as a builder. Sitting behind me is someone who worked as an electrician in small business. Also sitting behind me is another colleague and friend who worked as a publican in small business. We are the party of small business. Those opposite are the party of union officials who pay to look after their own. We understand that when you come into this place you cannot be like those opposite who are all care and no responsibility.

I want to remind the House that we went to the election and we told the Australian people that we would abolish the mining tax. That is exactly what we have done. It is not the historic reform that the member for Lilley promised and it no longer deserves to be on the statute books. So I am very proud of the fact that were able to abolish the mining tax.

The third thing I want to note in this place is something that the Prime Minister referred to during question time. It is fact that the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Maribyrnong, has said repeatedly in public that when you move to compulsory superannuation, you are taking money out of the pockets of workers—a point that he refuses to acknowledge in this place. I remind those opposite of the words of their own leader. Neil Mitchell from 3AW, in my home town of Melbourne, when he was talking to the member for Maribyrnong on 21 March 2012, said: 'Okay. So you are saying that the superannuation increases will be paid for by absorbing money out of the wage increases? Bill Shorten: That is the evidence.'

Again, just to prove it was not a fluke the first time, on 3 November 2010, in giving the closing address at the OECD/IOPS Global Forum on private pensions, Bill Shorten said:

Analysis suggests that, over time, Superannuation Guarantee increases have come out of wages, rather than profits.

The members opposite understand that their policy was leaving workers short-changed by taking money out of their pockets. This is a point confirmed by the Henry tax review, which in May 2010 said:

Although employers are required to make superannuation guarantee contributions, employees bear the cost of these contributions through lower wage growth.

There you have it—the Leader of the Opposition damned by his own words and by the Henry tax review, commissioned by the previous government. They destroyed small business in this country, killed hundreds of thousands of jobs and gave us a rotating cycle of small business ministers. Now they have the gall to come into this place and say that when we are fixing their mess it is not a good thing. I am proud of the fact that we have repealed the mining tax and I am sure the Australian people are with us too.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What you hear from the member for Kooyong's speech and what you have seen over the last 24 hours provides a real insight into the operations of this Abbott government. You see a government of broken promises. You see a government that is for the few not the many. You see a government that is focused on the short term not the long term. Think about the broken promises just for a minute. I am, frankly, tired of repeating their promises: no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no change to pensions, no increase in the GST, no new taxes, no adverse change to superannuation. Yes, I have repeated that once or twice. I will tell you why I have repeated that once or twice. It is because every Australian who voted for Tony Abbott put their faith in the fact that Tony Abbott was up there saying 'adult government', 'you can trust us', 'we will keep our words'. And what did he say as clear as he possibly could have said? 'No cuts to health, no cuts to education, no change to pensions, no cuts to the ABC, no cuts to the SBS, no change to higher education, no new taxes.'

This particular promise about superannuation he made 14 separate times. Fourteen separate times he made a clear, categorical commitment to the Australian people that he was not going to make unexpected adverse changes to superannuation. Do you reckon actually ripping super money off ordinary workers counts as an adverse change? I think it does. Maybe what he is quibbling with is the 'unexpected' bit. Maybe we should have expected it because this Prime Minister has said that superannuation is a con. We have heard it from the member for Kooyong as well. Is it not a bizarre thing to have a government that is arguing against national savings?

Since when have savings been a bad thing? We hear that $128 billion will be ripped out of our national savings pool because of the changes that it has announced.

Of course that hurts ordinary workers. Who else does it hurt? It hurts businesses in Australia that are trying to borrow money. It hurts our economy. One reason that Australia has coped so well with economic shocks is that we have had domestic sources of finance. We have had the ability to borrow money at home and this government would compromise that.

So they hurt individuals but, as well as hurting individuals and breaking their promise to individuals, they hurt Australian businesses by compromising our pool of national savings. I will tell you something else: this is a government of the few not the many. We heard about the dirty deal with Clive Palmer and the Palmer United Party. The Prime Minister is benefiting one big miner against who? Against almost nine million Australians who will miss out on superannuation; against 1.3 million Australian families, who will miss out on the schoolkids bonus, which is $15,000 for an average family with two kids going through school; and against 3.2 million small businesses. They claim to be the friend of small business.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those opposite are interjecting. I want to take this interjection, because those opposite are interjecting, 'Where's the revenue?' On the one hand, we have a government that say, 'This is an impost on the mining sector, jobs will be lost, businesses will be closed and investment will be stopped.' On the other hand, they argue that the tax did not raise enough. Is it too big or is it too small? Did it raise too much money or not enough? They cannot get their story straight. The real story is not that it is too big or too small; the real story is that it hurts their mates and they do not care that what they are doing is ripping savings off nine million Australians, 1.3 million families and 3.2 million small businesses. They will always go for the short term rather than the long term and they will always support their mates rather than ordinary Australians. This Prime Minister said 14 times, 'No adverse change to super.' Well, we have seen what his promises are worth. (Time expired)

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Watson, sitting opposite, has been to my electorate. He has seen how much food we grow.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They loved me when I came!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They did indeed—they couldn't wait to see the back of you. But, anyway, be that as it may. I have a personal explanation: that is, I cannot cook. My wife, Catherine, will back me up on that. But I am going to give Labor a little bit of a cooking lesson. The minerals resource rent tax was the magic pudding which failed to rise. Annabel Crabb and her Kitchen Cabinet would not come near my home were I to be actually at the stove anytime soon. To listen to Labor in government, you would be forgiven for thinking that the MRRT was indeed a magic pudding. The member for Lilley baked it, former Prime Minister Rudd choked on it and former Prime Minister Gillard not only reheated it but then doled it out so many times over that it actually cost more than it ever raised. This was a pudding that was high in sugar and very, very low in fibre. Had it not been scrapped, Labor's mining tax could have been expected to raise $668.5 million over the forward estimates—that is, from 2014-15 to 2017-18. The associated spending was to reach more than $17 billion—that is, $17,000 million—over the same period. No matter how thinly you cut the slices, you cannot pay for $17,000 million worth of spending with $668.5 million in revenue. That is the great con. Let us remember that around 125 taxpayers were required to comply with the tax without ever having to pay anything, wasting millions of dollars in compliance costs and red tape, the economic equivalent of empty calories, if you will.

We came to government with a promise to repeal the carbon tax and the mining tax. And, in one year, that is exactly what we have done. It is true that we have had to negotiate the passage of the mining tax repeal; we had to get it through the Senate. The Minister for Finance is to be particularly commended for his diligence and resolve in these negotiations. Our repeal package will still deliver a significant improvement to the budget over the forward estimates and beyond. We are eating our greens—I am not really that in favour of the Greens, but I do not mind eating them—but not banking on a pudding which will not rise and which will not deliver. Labor is having its cake and eating it too.

Opposition members interjecting—

You thought Bill Shorten could throw out the one-liners, but I tell you: these are better than Bill's. If Labor had not continued to frustrate the government's clear mandate—and that is what we were given last September—on the repeal of the mining tax, the changes the government has had to make may not have been necessary. You cannot refuse to budget and then make ridiculous claims about dirty deals. You cannot do that. Instead, we are making responsible changes to the phasing of the superannuation guarantee. Labor claims to care about workers, but increases in the superannuation guarantee are funded from reductions in take-home wages and business profits. We heard that from the member for Kooyong earlier.

If those opposite had been listening in question time today they would have heard the Treasurer. He is a good man and he is doing a very tough job. I do not envy him doing the job that he is doing. But I can tell you that he is doing a fine job of fixing up the mess that that mob opposite left us.

We heard from the Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, in question time today talk about 24 successive years of economic growth, probably not helped in part by the six years that Labor were in office, but be that as it may. We heard the Treasurer talking about making decisions in the national interest—

Mr Conroy interjecting—

I will just ignore the member for Charlton—I can tell you that his electorate will at the next election! We heard the Treasurer talk about how the mining sector is contributing one per cent of the three per cent—indeed, a third—of growth in the national accounts. That is significant. So why, with all that growth that the mining sector provides, would those opposite trying to slug the mining industry with a job-destroying mining tax? That is why, thank goodness, we got rid of it yesterday.

We heard about iron exports, a record 181.4 million tonnes in the June quarter alone. That is significant. That is 28 per cent higher than for the same period last year. We are getting on with the job of fixing the economy in the national interest. Those opposite just want to bring back a mining tax and a carbon tax. (Time expired)

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the dirty tactics this government has undertaken to the detriment of all Australians. Today is 3 September, and I remind those opposite that the B team they brought in, those intellectual giants, said this on exactly 6 September 2013 in an interview with David Koch, the president of the Port Adelaide Football Club and TV presenter. When asked about doing dirty deals with Independents, the now Prime Minister said:

Let's not let independents and minor parties muck up the next Parliament.

…   …   …

… I want to form a strong majority government …

But that is not what Clive wants to do. The Prime Minister in almost one year to the day has totally reversed that. When he was interviewed by David Speers and Kieran Gilbert on Sky News—a favourite of those opposite—he said: 'Kieran, we don't want another government depending on dodgy deals.' This government is depending purely on dodgy deals. It did dodgy deals with the Greens to lift the debt ceiling limit, and it has now done a dodgy deal to hurt the superannuation savings of nine million Australians because it wants to kowtow to the mining giants that lines its pockets.

There should be no mistake about this. Every single working Australian should always remember that Tony Abbott said the words, 'We as a coalition are against compulsory superannuation.' He has always stood by that, and he is always going to. So it is really a question of intelligence—which is why we keep those opposite out of the question, because they do not have any. It is a question of intelligence for the Australian people. They need to sit and think and realise that those opposite, in every fibre of their being, have fought every single wage increase, superannuation increase and support for jobs and benefits for working Australians to get ahead.

I had an email from a constituent of mine who said that, two years ago, she was asked to purchase netbooks for her two children. It would have cost $1,200 and she could not afford it; neither could the parents of about 12 other children in the class. You see, even with the schoolkids bonus, it is hard to keep up with the supplies that kids need in the modern day. Without it, I see the divide between the haves and have-nots in our public school system increasing. That is exactly what those opposite are doing—dividing Australians into haves and have-nots by attacking those who do not have lots of money to fly on planes to India for weddings. They are pitting the haves against those who go out there and do the hard work.

Not one of them across on that side will have their superannuation impacted on. Every single other Australian who goes out there and works day and night will have their life savings impacted on because this government lied to the Australian people when it said that it would not do dirty deals with Independent parties. It has. It has done a deal with a mining magnate to remove the mining tax at the expense of Australians, at the expense of kids going to school and at the expense of people who go to work every day and work hard to contribute to this country.

We should be having this government here today standing up and apologising for the fact that it got into office based on a lie. They should be made to come and apologise to every single Australian they have hurt. They sit there and say, 'We are the party of small business.' But what have they done? They have taken the loss carry-back away from small businesses, impacting on the mum-and-dad businesses that drive economy. We have seen the Minister for Small Business get up here and say, 'Small business is the engine room at the economy. ' He was not here today. He has gone away. Maybe he did not want to be in this parliament when the Prime Minister came in after doing his dodgy deal.

People under the age of 50 have now been cut adrift by this government. The government are impacting on those people's superannuation. They are also impacting on those under the age of 30. If you are under the age of 30 and you are trying to buy a house and raise a family, this pack of multimillionaires over there think that it is okay for you to get no government support for up to six months. For up to six months, you will not get any government support to pay your bills, to look after your kids or to take them to the doctor. So you are going to have to think twice about that. They want to put a $7 GP tax in place and put $7 on pathology and also radiology.

We have seen a government that, with every fibre they have, have come out and attacked working Australians in every possible way. They should be ashamed of what they have done. We know that at the next election we are going to see a lot of changes over there. There are a lot of temporary faces sitting there who came into this place on a lie, and that lie will come back and bite them at the next election.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who said this? Who said:

If we don't have the revenue from the tax then we can't make the investments.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was not our side. It was someone who sits over on that side. But he is not here. I will give you another hint. It is someone who has just written a book. It is someone who still defends the mining tax. It is someone who said a few years ago, 'We have temporary deficits.' It is someone who stood at that dispatch box a few years ago and said, 'I proudly announce surpluses tonight and into the future.' That is right—it was the member for Lilley back on 25 March 2011.

Let's not have members opposite, such as the member for McEwen, rewriting history. I am going to forgive the member for McEwen. I think the member for McEwen sticks to the script no matter what it is. Those opposite introduced a mining tax to raise money, to fund the things they are talking about—but it did not raise any money. It did not raise any money after they were warned it would not raise any money. I sat on the parliamentary committee that looked at the bill and witness after witness warned that they were irresponsibly locking in permanent expenditure on a shaky tax base that would never deliver.

Now you have the member for McEwen talking about a schoolkids bonus that three years ago they said had to be funded through a mining tax. Now the revenue is not there—and this is a real window into the Labor Party—they are more than happy to keep on keeping on irresponsibly. That is not what they said in government. In government they said they would raise the money and from that money they would fund these programs. But they raised none and went ahead and spent $17 billion. You only have to look at how this policy was born and then what happened to it to get the simplest explanation for Labor in power in the last two parliaments.

This mining tax, which the member for Lilley and those opposite were so proud of, was in its original form part of the Henry review. They sat on that review and sat on that review, and then they released this policy Pearl Harbour style on the mining industry. Then, of course, it started running off the rails. Where was the courageous member for Lilley then? He could not be seen; he handballed it to Kevin Rudd. Knowing that he had a control freak on his hands, he knew Kevin would delve into it. Kevin took responsibility and Kevin lost his job. Then along came Julia. She said to the member for Lilley, 'You've got to fix this mess you have created'. So, desperate to get a fix before the 2010 election, the member for Lilley altered the tax. It is now quite common knowledge that he did so without a single Treasury official in the room! From there, he legislated it and left us with the budget problem that we have today.

Those opposite are defiant; they are determined on the subject. Presumably they are going to reintroduce it if they ever have the chance, even though it will not raise the money to fund the things that the member for Lilley said they needed the revenue for. He said:

The mining tax linked investments cannot be made without mining tax revenue.

But they made the investments anyway. As I said, stubborn. I say to the member for McEwen that the coyote from Road Runner was stubborn too. You have to occasionally look at the quality of public policy. What we have seen in this debate, and what we have seen from the Leader of the Opposition, is no acknowledgement of failure.

Mr Conroy interjecting—

In the case of the three amigos, and the one always-smiling amigo—I will give you that, perhaps it is involuntary—what we see is ignorant acceptance of what they are told. This sums up everything about the former— (Time expired)

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a statement on the matter of public importance today on mining. I do so on behalf of my constituents in Hotham, on behalf of the nine million Australian workers who will lose superannuation under decisions made by this government, on behalf of 1.3 million families who will now go without the Schoolkids Bonus and on behalf of 3.2 million small businesses who will suffer from the decisions made yesterday just so that the biggest mining companies in Australia can make an extra few million dollars a year in profits.

I do not remember ever seeing such a flagrant display of a government supporting the powerful and the wealthy at the expense of ordinary Australians. Never has a clearer articulation of priorities been made than through the dirty backroom deals that those opposite promised they would never make.

Let us go through the decision that was made. This is a tax break for the wealthiest mining companies in Australia coming at the expense of a Schoolkids Bonus that more than a thousand families in my electorate relied on to do things like buy school shoes for their children, starting the new year of school, and to buy school books and laptops. These are things that people in my electorate cannot afford to do without that bonus. It comes at the expense of retirement incomes of ordinary Australians that have been reduced by billions—$128 billion less in national savings due to this decision yesterday. It comes at the expense of support for small business—more than $5 billion in tax breaks have been removed. The income support bonus is gone—that was a bonus of just $215 a year that went to some of the lowest-income people in the whole of Australia. All these are gone for the benefit of nine mining companies.

I have worked for some of these companies. In general, they are run by good people who are trying to do the right thing. But let us be clear: the resources that they are mining, processing and exporting belong to the people in my electorate, they belong to me and they belong to those on the other side of the chamber. But instead of keeping a profit based policy in place, which would make sure that the people who own these resources are the people to whom benefits flow, those profits will go back to mining companies. We know that those increased profits—

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To shareholders.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, and do you know where those shareholders come from? The vast majority come from overseas.

An opposition member: Eighty per cent of dividends go overseas.

Eighty per cent of those dividends go overseas. These are the resources that belong to the people in my electorate who, because of the decision made yesterday, will get much less out of the resources that belong to them.

We should not be surprised, because this fits very well with the ethics that we have seen from this government. We are seeing time and time again from the Abbott government adherence to one principle. They are not very principled people, but they do seem to come back to this one principle—that the more you have and the better off you are, the more this government has got your back. Look at the education reforms proposed by the Minister for Education. On the weekend, modelling by the Pilbara Group was released showing that these education reforms will be a massive boon to the most-privileged, best-off universities in this country. Yet those in regional areas and those in the outer boroughs of our big cities stand to lose significantly from the education reforms.

The Paid Parental Leave scheme is probably the worst example of the fact that the more you earn, the more welfare you get. It is absolutely outrageous that amongst all the crowing on the other side about budget issues, we have a government that has found $6 billion to give a cash splash to some of the wealthiest women in the country. Labor's scheme gave the same to everyone. That is because it is just as difficult to have a baby if you are a rich woman as it is if you are on a lower income. That is just how it is. The same goes for the toxic and regressive changes that we have seen in health—that is, the $7 GP co-payment, the changes to pathology charges and an extra $5 every time you fill a script. The sicker you are, the bigger your family and the more frequently have to go to the doctor, the more tax you are going to have to pay. It is absolutely outrageous.

Labor has committed to carefully targeting the spending of taxpayer money in a way that maximises the value of every dollar. To frugally spend public money, we need to give a hand up to the people in need. That is what people in my electorate indicate to me that they are happy to pay taxes for, not to give the Liberals the opportunity to make life easier for people who already are advantaged.

Now I come back to the premise today. It is only people who live in ivory towers and who come from the cloistered world of the ministry on the other side of the House who think that young people do not work because they are not looking hard enough for a job, that people go to the doctor when they are not really sick just because they have nothing better to do, that lower income people do not drive cars and that the 10 biggest mining companies in this country need a tax break more than millions of struggling Australians do. You ask, 'Who could possibly hold these beliefs?' These are the values, beliefs and ethics of this government, and Labor will oppose them every step of the way. (Time expired)

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Way back in 2011, when the Prime Minister of the day made a deal with the Greens, the mining tax was introduced. Our booming mining industry had more than 250,000 direct employees at that time. An extra 30 per cent super tax was imposed on top of all their other cost inputs. The Gillard-Rudd government expected $11 billion in revenue. The plan was to use this money—this imaginary revenue—to bolster low-income super, to fund infrastructure and to allow tax cuts. The revenue did not—I repeat did not—eventuate. The money had to be borrowed, the infrastructure investment had to be borrowed, and any minor economic gains to businesses were guzzled by the carbon tax.

Labor sheds tears and expresses mock horror about the effect of the repeal of the mining tax on nine million Australians. It is no wonder our budget is in such a dismal state. Those opposite have no understanding of the impact of the mining tax and the carbon tax. It is those opposite that have punished every single Australian with a tax on electricity, gas and groceries. It is those opposite who at every step put the interests of the Greens ahead of the interests of every Australian. It is those opposite that locked in $17 billion worth of new government spending and promised that it would be entirely paid for from the mining tax revenue. To bring that down to a household level, what the Labor Party have done is the same as spending $10,000 on a credit card even though they only earn 100 bucks a year. It is simply farcical.

This is a government that delivers on its promises, a government that sticks by its word and a government that is passionate about creating local jobs, not punishing businesses for being successful. The repeal of the mining tax is a win for every Australian. It is a win because it is good for investment, good for jobs and good for business. This is not just about a handful of mines somewhere in remote Western Australia. There are over 54,000 people in New South Wales who are directly employed in the mining industry. Mining contributes over $24 billion to the New South Wales economy and paid over $1.4 billion in state royalties last year alone. This does not even include company tax, income tax, payroll tax and so much more.

My electorate extends from the southern fringes of Shellharbour all the way down to the coast, almost to Batemans Bay. In 2012-13 the mining industry invested over $160 million in my community, with the Illawarra coalfields beginning mere kilometres from my northern and western borders and with many people employed at the coalfields living in Gilmore. Over 2,000 people are directly employed by the mining industry across the Illawarra and South Coast, with a total direct benefit to the region of $1.4 billion in 2012-13.

Just before the minerals resource rent tax became law, the previous member for Gilmore held employment forums for unemployed people wishing to get work in the Roy Hill mines. At that stage the company was looking for 8,500 workers. If we had been able to push forward with this after the forums were held, we would have brought the unemployment level in Gilmore down to zero. Yes, I repeat: zero. What stopped this? The mining tax became law and the investment in Roy Hill stopped.

The previous government have no idea what happens when they impose an extra tax on an industry that has long lead times to develop. The industry invest in other nations around the world where they get a better return on their investment and do not have to pay a mining tax. What else would they do? I am appalled at the apparent lack of understanding, yet it does explain why we have billions of dollars worth of debt. Those opposite rail about the changes to low-income superannuation. Have they spoken to the constituents who ask for help to access their super because they cannot afford to survive? We have to have a strong economy so that such people can get a job and earn even greater wages and get extra super. I congratulate the coalition team on repealing this legislation. The changes will inspire our mining industry to reinvest in Australia. All those unemployed who wanted to get work with Roy Hill mines may yet be able to get a job.

The rate of increase in super contributions is reduced, but the Leader of the Opposition, when in government, is quoted as saying that the super contributions supposedly generated by the mining tax would be compensation for the cheaper pay that workers would earn. I for one, right now, would prefer that the people of Gilmore had more dollars to spend in their pockets rather than dollars in their super accounts. We have not damaged any Australians, yet those opposite damaged the economic future for 23 million Australians and their children by their economic ineptitude.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been clear not just in this debate but by the comments made by the government in the media and in this House that those opposite just do not understand how superannuation works. When superannuation was introduced, the guarantee was a generational change. We are not talking about people who are retiring today having enough money in their superannuation accounts to live on. Low-paid workers will still need a pension. We are talking about a generation of young workers, the people who will have a working lifetime of superannuation when they retire. We are talking about people in their 30s who started to accrue super when they started working. They are the people who will really benefit from a working lifetime of superannuation.

People in my electorate who are older and a bit worried about what is in their superannuation accounts sometimes say to me, 'I feel a bit guilty about needing a pension.' I always say to them, 'You've worked hard, you've paid your taxes and you are entitled to a pension when you retire.' Let us not forget that superannuation was only introduced in the 1990s under the Hawke-Keating government. This is the point that the other side misses. The people you are really hurting by stopping the increase in the superannuation contribution are the young people, the people currently working in low-paid jobs. The Treasurer said on radio, 'But that is okay; they will get it in their wages.' I want to see legislation come before this House in which he increases their wages. He is relying on all those really good employers out there to increase their wages. I have never met an employer yet, particularly a big employer, who would just say: 'Guess what? We don't have to pay super, so we are going to give it to you in your next pay rise.' Is that what the government is relying on? If you are deadset serious about putting that money back into the wages of low-paid workers, then bring the bill before the House. To all those Nationals members that are sitting here: you have some of the most disadvantaged electorates—people on very low incomes, people working insecure jobs. Why are you not standing up for those workers to ensure that they have decent superannuation accounts when they retire? All that we have seen from this government, all we have seen from the coalition—all we have ever seen from them—is a tax. It is a tax on low paid workers.

Superannuation is a really good area to look at. When Labor was in government, we introduced a plan under which self-funded retirees whose incomes were over $100,000 paid some tax. It was a tax rate of 15 per cent, once their superannuation income was $100,000. To put it into context, we were asking those people to pay the same amount of tax as a worker on $68,000. As an example of this government's twisted priorities, one of the first things they did was to repeal that measure. In the legislation that they introduced yesterday, we now see them taking away superannuation from the lowest-paid workers—yet another example of the twisted priorities of this government. They are quite happy to look after their own, the people who do really well in the top end of the income bracket, and they are subsidising that by taking away from those who are on the lowest incomes. The only way we can ensure that people have enough self-funds, enough put away to retire on in the future, is by continuing to gradually increase the superannuation guarantee—so that people in their 30s will have enough to retire on in their 60s. That is how we get control of our pension bill—by empowering people, working people, to have enough in their superannuation accounts. The government have got their priorities wrong. They are putting a few mining companies ahead of nine million workers. They are putting mining companies ahead of 1.3 million families and ahead of 3.2 million small businesses. (Time expired)

Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just noticed the member for Hunter yawning twice there, and it is no wonder! And my good colleague, the member for Macarthur, yawned. This debate has been a yawn from Labor. Where are they? They know that the mining tax is gone—and that it was a good day for South Australia yesterday, and a good day for Australia. And they would have seen the headline in The West Australianlet me read it out to them, just in case they did not see it—'Jobs hope as mining tax gets the axe'. It is all about jobs. We are creating more jobs, and they know it. And the mining tax was destroying jobs.

Let us look at South Australia as a case study. Our mining operations and our economy have been held back by this devious tax. The South Australian Premier said, 'the minerals resource rent tax has very little application here in South Australia'. How wrong he is. SACOME, the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy, said that the MRRT was an unfair and inefficient tax, and that it discriminated against South Australia in particular, due to the vast amounts of magnetite iron ore in South Australia. So did we see the Premier of South Australia jumping on a plane to meet with the Labor Prime Minister of the day? No. Where was he? Did we see him yesterday, thanking the government for removing the mining tax and helping the South Australian economy? No. Where was he? Nowhere to be seen. Significant mining activity in South Australia is going to come from magnetite iron ore in the Eyre Peninsula and other areas of our state, and this will be great news for our economy. In contrast to the Premier's short-sighted statement, the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy's Jonathon Forbes said:

The thing is, the next big wave of mines in South Australian is going to be in iron ore. The market expectation is that there will be five to six new mines in the next five to seven years. Eventually, those mines would have been affected by the mining tax.

If only the Premier would stop complaining about the great things that this government is doing for the nation, and for the state of South Australia, including an increase in education funding of $275 million over the next four years, and an increase in health funding of over $333 million over the next four years.

What are we doing? We have created a vision: jobs for South Australia. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, this is the most stupid tax ever devised. This is a tax that cost jobs and costs investment. Let us just talk about investment. Australian government representatives overseas identified taxes like the mining tax and the carbon tax as creating sovereign risk for our country—less investment from overseas in Australia; fewer jobs, and less economic activity. Those opposite do not want to see jobs and economic activity; they just talk down Australia and the economy going forward.

Let us look at the other ramifications of this mining tax, from a compliance perspective. Fewer than 20 companies have contributed to the mining tax, but over 125 have actually been required to submit mining tax statement instalment notices while making no net payments—more red tape, more compliance. That is why this government is on the right track, by removing the regulatory burden, and by removing compliance with red tape for companies. We are helping businesses; they are against businesses.

Let me finish today with what the coalition has done in recent times. We have scrapped the mining tax. We have scrapped the carbon tax. We have got on with delivering infrastructure for the 21st century—for example, South Road in South Australia, $1 billion and many jobs; and great progress in upgrading the north-south corridor which will help some mining companies—like Boart Longyear at Adelaide Airport, and Normet in Torrensville in my electorate—get their drilling equipment to the markets of north and south Australia, with more jobs, more economic activity, and a better result for all.